Appeals court rules Indiana can’t ban sex offenders from Facebook

Social media ban is too sweeping to pass muster under the First Amendment.

Today, a federal appeals court struck down a 2008 Indiana law that banned registered sex offenders from using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The challenge was brought by an anonymous Hoosier who is on the state's sex offender registry as a result of a 2000 conviction for child exploitation. When the Indiana legislature passed a law banning him from using social media sites, he brought a legal challenge arguing the law violated his First Amendment rights. A lower court judge rejected his argument. But on Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overruled his decision.

"Illicit communication comprises a minuscule subset of the universe of social network activity," wrote a unanimous three-judge panel. "As such, the Indiana law targets substantially more activity than the evil it seeks to redress."

That's a problem because under Supreme Court precedents, regulations that target speech must be "narrowly tailored" to achieve a significant government interest. While deterring sexual exploitation of minors is obviously a legitimate government interest, the court found a total ban on accessing social media sites was too broad to pass muster.

The Seventh Circuit's ruling could influence pending litigation in San Francisco over a California initiative that requires sex offenders to provide the government with a list of their social media identifiers. Earlier this month, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the law. While decisions of the Seventh Circuit are not binding in California courts, Wednesday's ruling is likely to be cited in future litigation over the California measure.

Promoted Comments

As a registered sex offender in NC (for downloading some porn of high schoolers when I was 19), I'm glad to see at least some common sense is being applied. In NC, it's currently a felony if I create a Facebook account (or any account on a social networking website accessed by minors...I won't go into how poorly and ill-defined this law is). This ruling hasn't been applied to NC yet as far as I know. As danstl states, even if the laws are overtuned, I still can't technically make a Facebook account, as it's against Facebook's policy, the difference being though my account will still get deleted, I just can't be charged with a criminal offense for doing so. Also note, this does not affect sex offenders on probation/parole, as their access can still be restricted by their parole officer or judge. Even still, the laws still have a long way to go before they make any sense.

For example, even though I can't live within 1,000 feet of a school (blanket law), due to my offense being low-level enough, I can technically be on school property (that law is reserved only physical sex offenses), how dumb is that?

Regardless, I doubt I'll ever get back on Facebook (I was last on it in 2009). Sitting back on the sidelines, I've seen how stupid that website really is.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.